


Happiness by Osmosis

by Vestas_Kitchen



Category: History Boys - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Fictober 2017, M/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-08
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 20:35:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12307245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vestas_Kitchen/pseuds/Vestas_Kitchen
Summary: Once, he might have had a chance. Now, all he can do is watch.





	Happiness by Osmosis

 

_ My lord, I have remembrances of yours _

_ That I have longed long to re-deliver _

_ \- Willam Shakespeare, Hamlet _

* * *

 

 

Akthar tried not to be jealous. He did. 

But there was always that voice, that angry little tirade at Scripps,  _ I was there first. _ And he had been- the first, that is- the first friend, the confidant, the one who looked with. A shit Jew and a shit Muslim, sat next to each other in every class they weren't forced into alphabetical order for. Akthar sniggering, lapping around the field to catch back up to a wheezing Posner with a cheeky grin. Posner trying in vain to teach him vocal scales until they both gave up and went to lunch.

That had been nice. David Posner and Adil Akthar against the world.

Then one summer, the one in between lower and upper sixth, that changed. Akthar still didn't know the fuck why, but one day in August he came home from holiday and found he'd been replaced and didn't know how to put it back.

They acted out endings together. They sat at the back of the sports hall and shared jokes. Posner was never in on a Sunday morning, he was hanging about outside St John's, never actually going in. Posner had always said anyone who got up before eleven on a Saturday was a subject for mental examination.

Donald Scripps sang scales with Posner. Akthar sometimes, at low points wondered if his inability to sing was at fault, especially on quiet days in front of a school piano which he couldn't play.

And then there was Dakin. Fucking Dakin.

He couldn't help but cringe. Posner was trying so hard to be sincere, but just manage to make a fool out himself while looking so bloody pathetic and sad.

Akthar didn't like to see Posner sad. And there were only a few days where he'd let himself admit  _ why. _

It's wasn't like Akthar hadn't known Posner was queer. It has just occurred to him one day as a universal truth that everyone sort-of knew: thoughts come from the brain, Posner was gay, and that Akthar was unequivocally, irrevocably in love with Posner and had been for a very, very long time.

Posner looked at Dakin. Akthar looked at Posner. He met Scripps's eyes, looking at Posner.

David might have only been looking at Dakin for a few months, but Adil knew that he, himself been looking at Posner for years. It wasn't his fault that Posner didn't know the meaning of subtlety. It was painful to watch Posner humiliate himself, singing and a quoting and mooning, but there was that something else, that extra little stab in the chest, something saying  _ that's you. _

And that other one. The one that was even worse. The one that said  _ if only you'd been that obvious when he could still love you back. _

In that summer, the one where everything changed, only two days before he went away, Akthar had turned up at the bookshop Posner always worked at in the holidays with two bottles of coke and a packet of pick'n'mix for the lunch break. They'd sat in the storage room, surrounded by boxes upon boxes of fresh books, throwing Haribos into each other's mouths in between bitching about summer homework.

Posner finished up the last of the jelly hearts- Akthar never ate them, he thought they were awful- and started talking about this one book they'd just got in, that he was reading at the desk when no-one was in the shop. A romance. A romance between two men- Akthar vaguely remembered Felix issuing a decree that it would be confiscated from anyone who had it in the school. He also remembered being far too scared to buy it at the time from one of the big bookshops in Manchester or get it delivered- just in case anyone saw, and guessed.

David sighed, and leaned back in his chair, coke bottle leaning precariously in his lap. "Do you think anyone'll ever love me like that, Adil?"

Looking back, maybe David had been expecting something. He'd been so bloody wistful, so longing. And if there had ever been a moment, that had been it. And he'd wanted to say something. He'd wanted to say it. He'd wanted to say  _ "I love you like that, you great pillock, and I have since we were thirteen"  _ so much that it felt like his chest was in a compress, squeezing all the oxygen out of his body.

But he hadn't. He'd just said "I don't know, Pos. Maybe."

David had stared back down at his coke. "Yeah. Maybe."

Pos had waved him out of the shop, Akthar had gone on holiday, and then when he got back, they weren't really friends anymore.

Posner laughed with Scripps, and swooned at Dakin. Akthar argued with Crowther and snarked at Lockwood. And he still looked at Posner.

Akthar knew that Posner wouldn't notice. Ever. For all that boy's virtues, he was as observant as a desk lamp. Posner could have the world fawning at his feet and still think he was unloved by everyone.

And Akthar also knew he wouldn't win. Not against Scripps, who could play the chords on the piano and would laugh about the internal politics of the Reformation and could actually try to act on what he felt. In comparison, what did Adil actually have to offer? A shitty Kodak, half a set of driving lessons and chronic emotional avoidance tactics. If Adil was forced to pick, he knew he'd choose Scripps.

Scripps and Posner, one day, would be sickening together. They'd get shitty entry-level jobs and complain about them over fruit tea. They'd have too many cats and one day, probably adopt an equally sickening child. They'd grow their own herbs in the garden and go on holidays to art galleries. Adil could make a diagram of what their idyllic little life together would be like, if he ever cared enough too, and try to pretend that sometimes he didn't imagine himself in Scripp's place, like he'd ever be brave enough to say what he sometimes so desperately wanted to say.

But he knew he wouldn't. He never would.

So maybe, just maybe, he could content himself to watch, and be happy watching Posner be happy. Happiness by osmosis.

 

* * *

_  
'I think you’re beautiful, the only beautiful person I’ve ever seen. I love your voice and everything to do with you, down to your clothes or the room you are sitting in. I adore you.' _

_ \- E. M Forster, Maurice _

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
